Paint It Black
by Grav
Summary: He comes to her at night.  Part IX of Helen Does the Time Warp, Again.


**AN**: Another installment in "Helen Does the Time Warp, Again", this section comes after **Long Road Home**, **Begin Again**, **Enter Athene**, **To The Letter**, **Dog Days are Gone**, **The Keeper of Death**, **Hazy Shade of Winter** and **The Good Fight**. Time Travel! Who knew?

**Spoilers**: Into the Black

**Rating**: Teen

**Disclaimer**: Among the things I do not own.

**Characters**: Helen Magnus, John Druitt

**Summary**: He comes to her at night.

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><p><strong>Paint It Black<strong>

He comes to her at night.

The war is newly over and she is finally settled into her life in North America. She is close enough to Old City that she can visit when she needs to, just to see that events are progressing as they should. The town she has picked is small enough to be unimportant and big enough that no one will notice her if she keeps her head down. She does her best, but the rumours have followed her across the ocean, across the continent, and all the way here. The abnormals know that the Keeper of Death has settled, and they resume their quiet court, whether she wishes it or not.

He comes looking for mercy, carried by whispers of a woman who can tell a person of their life. Except for Nigel and James, she has never slipped up, never revealed more than she should. She has not changed the time line. She is sure of it.

He knocks, which probably means he doesn't plan to kill her. She isn't really dressed to fight him off, and the accuracy of her shooting has suffered from lack of practice. She shouldn't kill him anyway, so it's probably for the best if she stays unarmed.

"You are the Keeper of Death?" he says, and against her will, her heart quivers at his voice.

"I am," she says. Her voice is usually cracked when she speaks, but this time she hides behind steel and resolution instead of age and perceived wisdom.

"And you have seen death in the future?" he asks. There is blood on his hands. She can smell it, even though she cannot see it in the dark. She doesn't know where he has been. She does not want to.

"I have seen death in the future and the past," she says. James knew her fromm tone and inflection, from how she gave away just one thing too many. He, who should have known her better, will get nothing like that.

"Have you seen mine?"

She knows that tone. She heard it in a cell, when the elemental was gone. She treasured it after he stepped into the lab and took it back. She let herself hope, right up until he decided on a course so abhorrent to her that she drove all sympathy for him from her mind and, she thought, from her heart.

"Have you seen my death?" he asks again. There is desperation and pain. And she feels all the anger she has ever mustered against him harden in her stomach, and then explode outward.

She lets it come, welcomes it, even. This relief that has eluded her for decades, centuries. She can make her peace with him, and it will cost her nothing, because he will never know. At last, she understands how James could forgive him, at the end.

This is not her end, and it is not his either, but that does not mean she cannot take advantage of it. That has always been something she is good at, and the years have only sharpened her tongue. She lets the anger out, not stoppering it against some time when she might need him, not caring that her words might push him over the edge, because she knows absolutely that neither of those things are a risk.

"You will not have peace, John Druitt." All her hate pours into her words. Two lifetimes lost on his account. She quashes the logical part of her that equivocates and, just this one time, lets the hatred flow freely from her lips. This is the true power of the Keeper of Death. This is why she let the rumours spread. This is why she didn't disappear all those years ago. "You will not have peace and you will not have death. You will have only brief respite made all the more bitter by the inevitable crawl of darkness back into your soul."

There are tears in his eyes when he disappears, glistening against his scarred cheek in the darkness, and underneath her veil, her cheeks are wet.

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><p><strong>finis<strong>

Note: When I made the vid for John, I already knew that the Vanessa Carleton version of the same song was going to poke me until I wrote a Helen fic about it. And here we are.

Gravity_Not_Included, September 14, 2011


End file.
